High functioning depression

Hi all. I have been fighting depression for the last 20 years I am now 31. I have had relationships and been able to hold down a job whilst dealing with the most hideous depression i could ever imagine. I recently read an article on high functioning depressives. those who manage day to day activities but still have severe depression. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced depression like this. I have had moments of not wanting to get out of bed and live ( i have been this way for the past 3 weeks) but for the most part i mask my depression. I go to work i do daily activities. I am on medication long term. but i still feel the total pain and isolation of depression. I know depression can come in bouts my last bad episode was about 2 years ago and it feels like my current episode is turning into a living nightmare. I am now cutting people off and i have not been to work in a week. I feel tired and just want to sleep. I am not bi polar i do not experience extreme hghs and lows i am either managing or i am overcome by the depression. I am interested if anyone else who has depression experiences it this way?

I guess I fall into this category. I held a high performance job when I was diagnosed with depression. Medication helped though. I've never really been bedridden due to depression to the point that I can't go to work. Although work I feel has suffered from my downers quite abit. I still manage work since I'm quite intelligent and when I do work I work quite fast and catch up. This is not the case with relationships though as they drain my energy and lead me to forsake them.

I do get the occasional panic attack, but they are rare and far between.

I am a high functioning depressive. I hold a full time job, have a loving and supportive family, but still suffer from a suicidal depression. I am currently having ECT, at the same time I am actively trying to commit suicide...in a long term accident kind of way. I hate the way I feel, or don't feel. Glad to see there is someone else like me, although I feel sorry for you.

This description fits me, as well. I have suffered from severe depression for 13 years, have a career, high education, etc. I have had hospitalizations, therapy, meds. . . blah blah blah. The hardest part about it for me is feeling like my depression is a secret. No one knows and it's not something that's acceptable to talk about. I didn't even tell my family about my last hospitalization. I either feel like I'm falling to pieces, or on overdrive. Sometimes, all I can think about is cutting my wrists or just getting in my car and driving into the blue without telling anyone.

I really feel for you. I hope you can find something, anything, to make your life more worth living. Find something that makes you feel alive, something that makes you feel the air in your breath. I am hoping for you. . .

me i do. my depression hits me worse near winter time. i still chill with my small amount of friends (i usually just disappear from them) and have been holding onto this job for over 3 months already (i usually quit within 2 weeks). but here i am still struggling to understand why the fuck im always like this. sometimes i dont wanna talk to anyone at work. after a minute of conversation i just wanna get away from everyone and be alone. im fking weird like that

I do have a full time job, though just barely. Because of the things I was going through a while back, I began calling in sick a lot, and I mean a LOT, so much so that my boss had to talk to me about it. I'm doing better now, or trying to, at least. I've always been able to put on a mask and make it through day to day life in spite of feeling utterly miserable. Though I don't feel miserable all the time, at least not as much as I did before. I've experienced brief moments of happiness, and those times were great. But regardless of how I feel, I still try to force myself to get up, shower, get dressed, and go out and do the things I have to do, kick the can down the road a bit. On my days off, however, that's another story. I completely neglect personal hygiene and I basically hide out indoors, living like a hermit. I don't go anywhere or see anyone, I isolate myself and spend most of the day sleeping or doing other unproductive things to pass the time. The internet has become my primary form of contact with the outside world.

For me, I really never considered myself severely depressed until it effected my ability to function in society. I have been depressed with differing degrees of severity for the past 7 years or so. During most of that time, although I consistantly hated myself and considered myself a failure, I was somewhat motivated to do things like go out with "friends", go to school, work ect. Recently I lost that motivation, and I now find myself in bed all day drinking and wasting away.

Now that I'm in this state I find that my thoughts become far more dark and grim. For me, the less motivated I am to be highly functional the worse my depression is. With that being said, I would suggest that ones who are highly functional are in a better mental state because these people have to be motivated in some way to be functional. I look at it as the worse your depressed mental state is the less able to find motivation. Although I am not saying highly functional people aren't depressed; I would say that those who function decently in society are in a much stronger mental and physical position than those who have lost their will to function at a high level or at all.

I posted a longer reply to you blueskies but somehow lost it::shrug::. Bottom line...I feel depression is depression. To pass judgement on whether someone is more or less depressed by whether they are functioning or not just leads to more self hatered by the people you deal with this devastating illness. I function while I actively am trying to kill myself. I do not want my family to think I committed suicide, I want to make it look like an accident. I would hazard a guess that many "functioning" depressives hate themselves and life, but for some reason feel compelled to go on, at least for now. I am sorry if this sounds harsh, it just was very triggering for me. I wish you all the best blueskies.

In no way was I passing judgement. I was not saying that one's functionality in society is a gauge to measure someone's depression. I was just suggesting that those who are highly functional have some form of motivation to be so. An example of this type of motivation could be one's feelings for their family. All I was suggesting was that having a form of motivation to be highly functional is a healthy thing to have. Even though that same person may not be in a healthy mental state in general.

Also I am not trying to state any truths, I'm just suggesting things based on my experiences and the experiences of those who I know personally who suffer from depression. I apologize if I angered you at all. I try not to be ignorant on such topics and perhaps my initial post did not come off quite as I intended.

I am so sorry if I upset anyone. Please no offense was taken I just hate what my mind does to me on a daily basis and needed to vent I guess.....I did look up Dysthymic disorder and after 45 yrs of treatment it seems to fit. I struggle so much, have been through ECT, more meds than I can count and endless therapy and my body still treats my brain like a foreign substance it needs to rid itself of....I HATE it. I have to function because I carry the health insurance, I even had to go back to work on the days I had ECT so no one would know. I walk a fine line between life and death because death seems like the only way out. Oh well, thank you all for listening again.

Always here to listen and wish could do more. The long term dysthymic can be horrible- and because you "manage" to go to work it gets treated as less sometimes. It can also happen that you can have acute depression episodes while suffering from that. I am not sure if having a possible name for it really helps, but at least you should know it is not just you. Sounds like you have had the gambit of treatments _ I hope someday you or your doctors find something that brings more relief.

Thank you for your advice. I am reading up on Dysthymic disorder and the more I learn the better I feel. I did begin to think it was just me, or I was faking it because "who could be depressed for sooo long?" Now I know it is real and that I need and deserve help. Thank you again